American Airlines/AAdvantage

Mileage and Point Reward Status (July 2011)

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This is my monthly recap where I look at what reward programs we were able to add miles or points to over the previous period. Now that we are completely moved into our new home, and have a tenant for our old home, I can start concentrating on acquiring massive amounts of new miles. My main goal over the next couple months is to take advantage of a Continental Airlines credit card offer before they go away with the United merger. Hopefully there are some other nice inspiration credit card offers out there in the near future too so we can now take advantage of them. Another goal will be to try and start using some of these miles and points in some of our miscellaneous accounts that we do not plan on using towards a future Hawaii trip.

This monthly exercise also worked in my favor because I had to update our address on file for all of the accounts.

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The following is a brief summary of the things we have done in the past month to build up our accounts.

Delta SkyMiles– Audience Rewards trivia questions in all three of our accounts.

United Mileage Plus- No change.

Continental OnePass- My wife and I each have two accounts due to checking accounts opened a couple years ago. I have not been able to figure out why our total went up 1,000 miles this past month as I am not even showing any activity in any of the accounts.

US Airways Dividend Miles– Toolbar use and Audience Rewards trivia in both of our accounts.

American Airlines AAdvantage– The LAX promotion from several months ago finally posted to all of our accounts.

Hilton HHonors– No change.

Priority Club Rewards- MyCokeRewards had an excellent promotion to redeem points for Priority Club points. I picked up an extra 4,000 points.

Starwood Preferred Guest– This past month we decided to finally open a SPG account to take advantage of some free points promotions out there and see where the program can take us. We are hoping to grow our balance in this account, and thus why we are now tracking them.

This past month we also opened up Frontier accounts for each of us, and received some initial promotional miles; however, we are not tracking them yet because I am not sure how many miles we will really ever earn with them.

Note, we also have reward accounts with AirTran, Southwest, Choice Hotels, and Wyndham Rewards, but since we do not really use them, there is no point in including them in this list. I debated about including Southwest Airlines, since we do have some of the old credits from the previous Rapid Rewards program; however, after looking at what we would need to earn in the new point system to receive an award before they expire (old points still appear to expire), makes it unlikely that we will ever get anything out of the system.

American Airlines Fortune Cookie Promotion Revisited

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Back on April 8, 2011, I wrote about a special American Airlines promotion to earn miles randomly through a “fortune cookie” promotion in my thread American Airlines Fortune Cookie Promotion (LAX)(Free Miles). In that post I highlighted how you could earn miles by repeatedly trying with varied email addresses and promo codes. It literally took me 100+ tries, but we eventually won a total of 1,900 miles across all four of our accounts. I should have trusted my gut on whether we would actually receive the miles or not.

Here it was July, and none of the miles posted to any of our accounts. So I emailed American Airlines, and luckily I wrote down all of the confirmation numbers. After several days, and a confusion, we finally received our missing miles.

While I realize most people had to trick the system to qualify for the miles, I am always extremely disappointed in these companies that do not follow through with their promotions. On top of it, it seems to be happening more and more lately. Luckily, I try and keep pretty good notes, and copies of all my records to keep track of them whether it be rebate forms or earning free miles. These companies though should automatically be giving customers what they earned if they met all the requirements of the promotion.

It just really frustrates me that I need to follow through to get a company to comply with their promotions. The same thing just happened with United Airlines last month. My wife was offered 1,000 miles for signing up for emails. She did it and 8 months went by, with multiple contacts to United, and the miles finally showed up last month. Really? Why did I need to hound them to get the miles my wife qualified for, but United failed to deliver?

I realize it’s only (fill in the blank) miles, but come on companies! Get your acts together and start treating your customers with some respect.

The lesson to be learned here is make sure you too keep good notes. I highly recommend taking screen shots for online promotions as well. You never know when you are going to need to be diligent with these companies to have your accounts properly credited.

Mileage and Point Reward Status (June 2011)

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This is my monthly recap where I look at what reward programs we were able to add miles or points to over the previous period. This month will not be too impressive only because last month we had a stellar amount of bonuses show up, as well as we purchased a new home and are still trying to sell ours, so that has been keeping us really busy.

[easychart type=”line” height=”300″ width=”350″ title=”Mile/Point Status (As of 6/30/11)” groupnames=”Delta,United,Continental,USAirways,American,Hilton,Intercontinental” valuenames=”Jan2011,Feb2011,Mar2011,Apr2011,May2011,June2011″ group1values=”69447,69447,70447,70947,70947,70947″ group2values=”100043,100043,108043,108059,108059,109059″ group3values=”67333,67333,67333,67333,67333,67433″ group4values=”8018,8020,11759,13778,13778,13899″ group5values=”0,300,600,600,600,4600″ group6values=”11679,11679,21979,24479,24479,26297″ group7values=”29271,29271,29271,29271,167571,169571″]

Since January, we have amassed quite a bit of points and miles, and I contribute the big part of that to this blog as it has kept me accountable to finding the latest offers and promotions.

The following is a brief summary of the things we have done in the past month to build up our accounts.

Delta SkyMiles– No changes

United Mileage Plus- In November 2010, my wife received an email to earn 1,000 free miles to opt in for emails. After several emails to United, she was finally given her miles. I am not sure why I never got invited in this promo though.

Continental OnePass- 100 points earned from our miles and points stay at a Hilton in CT.

US Airways Dividend Miles– Dining rewards and toolbar use added 121 miles

American Airlines AAdvantage– We all opened our accounts with the HIS10 promotional code, and were each credited 1,000 miles. We are still waiting for our miles earned from the LAX fortune cookie promotion from months ago, and I initiated a credit this week with AA.

Hilton HHonors– added 1,818 points from our stay in CT.

Priority Club Rewards- After contacting Priority Club again, I finally was given my 1,500 bonus spin-the-wheel (local promotion) points from our stay in the Finger Lakes. I also used My Coke Reward points to purchase a special Wednesday only deal of 500 points.

Note, we also have reward accounts with AirTran, Southwest, Choice Hotels, and Wyndham Rewards, but since we do not really use them, there is no point in including them in this list. I debated about including Southwest Airlines, since we do have some of the old credits from the previous Rapid Rewards program; however, after looking at what we would need to earn in the new point system to receive an award before they expire (old points still appear to expire), makes it unlikely that we will ever get anything out of the system.